Functional MR study of hepatic fibrosis

Abstract

The accurate diagnosis and staging of hepatic fibrosis is crucial for treatment and prognosis of liver disease. The current gold standard is liver biopsy, but it cannot be used in population-based screening, and has well known drawbacks if used for monitoring of disease progression or treatment results. Functional MR, as a non-invasive method, is increasingly used in hepatic fibrosis and became the current hot spot. Most recently available functional MR imaging techniques including diffusion weighted imaging, perfusion weighted imaging and MR spectroscopy can detect cirrhosis or fibrosis reasonably accurately. However, to date only MR elastography has been able to stage fibrosis or diagnose mild disease. MR diffusion weighted appears next most promising.